The crux of the problem with In Sheep's Clothing is that we're still not getting much in the way of payoff. A lot of questions are answered, sure, but the episode presents itself as one final buildup to the confrontation with The Crooked Man.
As adventure games go, The Tesla Effect is pretty average. The story and characters are quite entertaining, but the puzzles are mostly boring, and the gameplay visuals could use another coat of polish.
The most insidious thing about Moebius is that you don't know how wretched it truly is until the very end. Sure, it's tedious, stupid, ugly and glitchy, but you don't really grasp it until all of that culminates in the last act.
Ether One might well represent the apex of its particular subgenre. It engages the player at every level they might want to engage it, and rewards them handsomely for plunging into its depths.
A Crooked Mile marks a strong midpoint in Bigby Wolf's magical dead hooker mystery tour. The writing keeps you on your toes and manages to evoke some pathos, even without any big twists to prop it up.
Though it's got many of the building blocks for my ideal prison game (is that a weird thing to have?), 1954: Alcatraz is a disappointment. A few great ideas are drowned in a torrent of design flaws and technical problems.
Not loving Jazzpunk is as difficult as classifying it. Few games are this confidently weird, and even fewer manage to pull off anything even resembling humour. If you're looking to laugh a lot, and maybe even think about stuff just a little bit, give it a play. If you're looking to be a jerk in a movie theatre from the comfort of your own home, the game will also cater to that need. It's weird that way, and apparently so are you.
There's an audience for Strike Vector, but that audience needs a lot of patience and a high tolerance for failure. It wants to beat you into the ground, and makes no effort to hide that fact.
Smoke and Mirrors is a solid continuation for The Wolf Among Us. A lot of seeds were planted in Faith, and while a few have borne fruit, most of this episode's running time is spent tending to them.
Though I feel incapable of giving Blackguards the fair shake it would get with fresh eyes, that's ultimately nobody's fault but the developer's. Early access works for emergent play – games like Rust and Starbound where no play session is the same and every update changes the dynamics – but it's ill-suited to more linear, directed experiences.
Joking aside, there's a valuable comparison to be made between Broken Age and Broken Sword: The Serpent's Curse. Both are throwbacks to the golden age of point and click adventures made by creators who helped define that era.
If you're getting tired of swords and sorcery, or just looking for meaty tactical battles, few RPGs will satisfy you better.
Adventure games thrive on compelling stories and a solid sense of logic, and Violett has neither. More criminally, the logic underlying the game's systems seems to be broken, making it nearly unplayable.
I adore Stick It to The Man, and if you enjoy the anarchic humor in Paper Mario and Psychonauts, I have a feeling you will too. It's a unique, funny, occasionally brilliant experience full of colorful characters and creative puzzles. If you like your entertainment quirky and featuring love-lorn balding yetis, pick this up. I can guarantee it'll stick with you.
Gravity Badgers is a mess of a mobile game that has no business being on Steam. The art and music are piss-poor, the puzzle design — if you can even call it that — shows absolutely no thought and requires even less effort to solve and what little humor there is dries up almost immediately.
Contrast is a mess. It's ugly, tiresome, insipid and occasionally insulting.
Knack is a new-age throwback to a time when you could get away with telling stupid, fun stories about mascots beating up goblins in a simple, three-button brawler. It's also a fine showcase for the PS4's horsepower that doesn't paint its world primarily in grey and brown.
Journey of a Roach is a bog-standard adventure game built around a single kind of nifty idea. It attempts to ape the style of games like Machinarium, but fails to emulate any of that title's wonderful charm or design sensibilities.